


Only If You Ride The Tide

by LotusRox



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug kink is not a legit tag and now i'm kinda sad, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Stockholm Syndrome, Syringe kink isn't a tag either and it should be, Torture, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4943767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusRox/pseuds/LotusRox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The pain from the needle jammed in his vein was getting familiar, but this time it had only stung for a second or two before relief flooded in, pleasure curling into his spine and through his body erasing everything on his wake. A sensation beyond anything he had experienced, that felt like serenity and silent joy and pulses of bliss, washing over him like waves on a sea he didn’t fear.</p><p><i>This is not sodium penthotal</i>, Huey had thought, weak."</p><p>---</p><p>Hiding in between all the lying and excuses, there are heavy spoilers for MGSV here.</p><p>Also could be entitled "Spy Master of Deceit meets Deluded Mythomaniac, and it all goes downhill from there". Or also "Mother Base is a Drug Cartel", because come on. Look at all that blatant plant farming, barely hidden beneath some names in code.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only If You Ride The Tide

**Author's Note:**

> The first draft for this was published on my tumblr some weeks ago. Truth to be told, I feel honored for inaugurating this ship tag with this kind of sinning. I had been shipping these two since the first time we saw Ocelot injecting Huey on the trailers, but after the “Golden Crescent” got revealed in gameplay teasers, I just couldn’t get this idea out of my head.
> 
> My UTMOST thanks to @Tanalilt, who did me the favor of betareading this fic and staying with me until we deemed it suitable for public consumption ;3 <3 You're amazing, friend. (And you all should seriously go check her profile here!)
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

Since there’s no way to tell night from day, in between darkness and arrhythmia, Huey turns to the memories of his first time.

He had screamed and coughed until hoarse after his legs had been taken away from him. He hadn’t stopped after the beatings and the electricity, nor after the salty, disgustingly thick water forced its way into his lungs through the cloth covering his head. When Shalashaska approached to him, spurs jingling, and took off the pouch; Huey had struggled so hard that Kaz had intervened, grabbing him by the hair to bare his neck.

(He’d known deep inside in that moment that Kazuhira Miller had requested to be present in every torture session, to keep the acerbity of his resentment intact. He’d learn later that the only reason Shalashaska had allowed his intervention was because he wasn’t opposed to an assistant when it suited his needs. When it came to his craft, Shalashaska would play the human body exactly how he wanted and in which places he liked, and _he had wanted his neck._ )

“The fuck are you doing anyway, Ocelot”, Miller had grunted, every word bitter, disgusted. He yanked, and white spots danced in Huey’s vision: “This again? Don’t we have enough proof your truth serum hasn’t worked yet?”

The pain from the needle jammed in his vein was getting familiar, but this time it had only stung for a second or two before relief flooded in, pleasure curling into his spine and through his body erasing everything on his wake. A sensation beyond anything he had experienced, that felt like serenity and silent joy and pulses of bliss, washing over him like waves on a sea he didn’t fear.

_This is not sodium penthotal_ , Huey had thought, weak. 

(He distinctly remembers having moaned, and the smirk Shalashaska had given him in return stayed with him for so long he could still feel it.)

“That’s uncharacteristically daft coming from you, Commander…”, voice so soft, so insidious: “There are as many kinds of truth serums, as there are notions of truth.”

Back then, time had felt distorted too, but in a way Huey knew he’d later crave. Something in it felt utterly familiar to the painkillers of a childhood spent in physical rehab, and when he realized the syringe had been loaded with heroin, he had immediately known he had lost.

Huey Emmerich had been a man who, by upbringing, had forced himself to be as Spartan as possible in a futile attempt to appease the contempt of his father, until it stuck into his adulthood. He allowed himself so few instances of comfort… Nicotine and caffeine being small indulgences he permitted in the name of chasing away exhaustion and summoning focus. Food had been nourishment, the aesthetics of it uninteresting if they didn’t further its purpose. Sex, a fantasy at most during decades of his life until she– Oh, but she was gone, gone, _she had abandoned him,_ and the sweet release he’d learnt from her in the few times she’d allowed him into her bed had left him along with her.

A life that felt void and barren once you took away his achievements. So much loss, Big Boss’s ambition wiping out the only place had had ever felt at home. So few instances of escaping a reality that mostly felt like a shackle.

_If all he had were his creations, hadn’t it been natural to try and protect them with all he had?_

Pain and emptiness, he could resist. He hadn’t been prepared for pleasure, and Shalashaska had probably understood that where nobody else had. Because somehow, the heroin had been so much better than anything he might have ever denied to himself before. Warm and bright, it felt like love, and once the high had been over, Huey just laid right there on the floor, aching and shivering. Missing it like a lost limb.

_Oh, he didn’t deserve this, no, hadn’t he lost so much already? And Miller daring to say he knew nothing of sacrifice…_

(Huey is sweating and shuddering, curled up over now familiar tiles. The hard flooring doing nothing for his feverish skin, making the cold inside his nerves hurt like icicles spreading all over.)

And Shalashaska, oh, Shalashaska had been such a smart man. Because the first time hadn’t been the only time. Creating a need was so much more easily done if you didn’t limit yourself to one single instance. Or to entry-level doses.

Shalashaska had tenderly stroked his hair and jawline the second and third times, softly whispering to him how well he was doing while pushing the plunge. Heroin probably didn’t have to feel like absolute, total obliteration. But Diamond Dogs had started poppy-harvesting themselves on the Golden Crescent since the Boss had come back, and with the quantities of high-quality dope produced in-base that had been hitting Huey’s bloodstream each session…

(He has been pleading and begging, and he can’t even recognize his own ragged voice anymore. He hears his own whimpers, weak and undignified, and they feel inhuman to his ears.)

Big Boss had returned in the meantime, and another interrogation with Miller there and Snake behind the two-way mirror had carried over. Huey had been sober and craving, and the smell of the Metallic Archaea singing the metal of his chair had branded onto his brain; and he had pleaded, begged, screamed, and _why nobody had believed him? All he had ever wanted was a chance to prove himself sincere and true._ Staying still to not press that plunge onto his thigh while worms crawled under his skin, the itch of abstinence syndrome embedded at the end of every nerve, had been worse torture than waterboarding. He’d have gladly endured another round if it meant never being so terrified again.

(There’s neither use nor meaning to concepts like lies or truth, he has lost it all. There’s only need, and need feels like a thousand fleas trying to escape him from every pore at the same time.)

But Shalashaska, he had come back after what felt like an eternity later. He had smiled and put him onto his back. Returned him his corroded glasses, and that had let Huey known it was time for his fourth dose, even before the other man lifted the sleeve of his shirt to caress the crook of his elbow in preparation, soothing. He knew fully well Ocelot couldn’t be doing these gestures out of regret and yet he couldn’t help but appreciate them.

Had it been weeks he had spent there in the cell, after that fourth time? It had quite literally became his Lotus-Eating Machine. No more visits from Miller. Daily trips to that space where even a body like his could felt like bliss incarnate, they hadn’t _let him_ come down... and then Shalashaska had stopped coming.

Huey has his glasses on him, though they do him no good with no source of light. His legs are back to being the useless, lifeless lumps he had known his whole existence, and he has meal trays pushed through the small hatch on the door at irregular intervals. Water, too. Huey can’t find it in him to be interested in either things. Hallucinations dance in the corners of his eyes, his whole body singing with pain and yearning.

The sound of spurs nearing his cell makes him sob. He starts crying when he hears the jingle of keys, the door opening.

“Oh, Emmerich… What is this?”, and the tender softness in the voice of the other man makes him choke. Huey closes his eyes when the light switch gets flipped, his senses screaming as if under attack. “I told Miller to take care of you while I was away. Don’t tell me he didn’t?”

Shalashaska smells like ozone and chlorine and leather when he kneels next to him, and it’s the best thing Huey has ever breathed in. He holds onto the other man with the strength he has left, unable to speak, trembling.

“It’s alright. You don’t need to be making such a mess. Honestly, Emmerich… Aren’t you a grown man? Come here.”

When Shalashaska bares his elbow, Huey lets him. He lets Shalashaska tie the strip of leather around his arm, docile and silent, as still as he can despite his heavy shivering. Anticipation building until desperation sets back in despite his best efforts.

… And then Shalashaska actually hands him a full syringe.

“I trust you know how to do this yourself by now?”

Huey takes it, ignoring all the voices inside his head reminding him he’s never, ever, IV’d before. He looks for the vein, popping bright blue against the pale of his arm, strokes a thumb against it to brace himself. Then stabs it with an unsteady hand, damage be damned, and pushes the plunge.

Relief washes over him, and he belatedly realizes he moaned out loud at the sensation, yet again. He finds his words, whispers:

“Thank you, Shalashaska”

Unfocused pupils linger into the other man’s features, the smile there reassuring, pleased, _beautiful._

“You can call me Ocelot.” He says, and he cradles Huey’s face with a hand that feels like warmth itself, even through his gloves. “I’ll take care of you, Emmerich. Good care, for a good boy. You just have to earn your keep here, but I’m sure it’ll be easy for you.”

The heroin washes away the memories of having resisted coming to Mother Base and everything he had left behind. They fade like the pain and solitude that has plagued his whole life. There’s only the present time, the sensation of thick, thick water licking at him, flooding him. The taste of menthol of it diluting any objections he might still have until they can't reach him.

So warm. So bright. He’s drowning and he wants it, welcomes it.

Caressed inside out by something better than skin to skin contact, Huey just allows himself be held by Ocelot and surrenders all coherent thought. He falls nodding into the safety of the other man's arms, his heart pulsing at the beat he gifted to him.

For the first time on his life, he’s genuinely happy.

**Author's Note:**

> _For long you live and high you fly_   
>  _But only if you ride the tide_   
>  _And balanced on the biggest wave_   
>  _You race toward an early grave._
> 
>  
> 
> (Breathe, Pink Floyd)
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
> Hereby I confess I love Huey Emmerich, actually. All the shit he pulled filled me at first with enough salt to cook for a thousand years, but the longer I thought about him, the more fascinating I found him. He’s so beyond redemption, so morally reprehensible, it’s entertaining attempting to get inside his head. I really like how even in his internal monologue he’s inconsistent, constantly retreating into self-pity and twisting the truth even if there’s nobody else to hear.
> 
> I will forever stand by my idea of Ocelot being the only one who ever got to really know who he is... and therefore, was able to play him like a _very cheap violin_. Have you heard those tapes? Jesus.


End file.
